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June 6th: I turned my letter of resignation in to my boss. I gave him a 4 month notice. Everyone around me said I was stupid for giving him that much time, but I knew in my heart that it would be very difficult for me to walk away after giving a two week notice. Especially since my coworker walked in and gave her less than 2 weeks notice the very next day.

September 21st: My last day at work. All of our positions had been filled. I tried to give them my brain so they would be prepared for the task at hand. I may be small, but my shoes were tremendous. I kissed my babies, a promotion I turned down, and my office that I worked so hard on, good bye.

September 24th: I packed up my 774 sq ft. apartment in my parents mid sized SUV with my mattresses strapped to the top and we took off. It took my husband and I 12 hours and 7 stops to make it to Houston safely, Alhamdulillah. We spent the next 2 hours trying to unload the car because I was paranoid that someone would break into my car and steal my dollar tree organizers.

September 26th: I turned 24. I spent the day organizing my mothers kitchen (without her permission. She wasn’t exactly thrilled when she came home from work). We ate a beef and pineapple pizza with bbq sauce for dinner and my husband surprised me with an amazing cake that made me cry.

September 28th: I boarded a plane to Miami. We spent time with my husbands people who live out there.

September 29th: I finally boarded a plane to Kingston, Jamaica.

December 5th: I sit. Writing this. Reflecting on my life thus far. I try not to think about what is next because I do not have an answer to that question, and typically that is not a question I allow to go unanswered.

There is time. Even though it slips away from me each passing day. There is time…

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Yesterday was my oldest brothers birthday. Today is my mothers birthday. I am currently sitting in William P. Hobby Airport as I write this. Leaving my mother. In 12 days, I will be turning 24. My Kobe year. That realization is really starting to sink in.

My Jordan year has been very eventful. I got married and traveled more in that year that I have my entire life. I turned in my first official letter of resignation.I can’t count moving to Jamaica in my list of accomplishments since it will actually take place while I am embarking on my Kobe year.

There is always this debate on who is greater, Jordan or Kobe. Their numbers are 23 and 24. I don’t know much about basketball, but I can’. But I have enjoyed adding these two remarkable players as the guiding light of my yearly journeys that I am haphazardly recording.

Recently, I was suckered into downloading audible because I wanted to read, “Year of Yes,” by Shonda Rhymes, but couldn’t find a copy in Lubbock and couldn’t justify the shipping price. 6 bucks.

In this “book” she tells us of the year that she spent saying yes to the things that scared her. Listening to it, really made me evaluate a lot of things in my life, and how I’ve allowed my fear to say no to so many opportunities that presented themselves in front of me. Ask any of my students, when that come to my office and say they have a questions, my first response is “No!” Before I’ve even heard the questions. I think to myself, I have already said yes to too many things, I do not have enough time, I’m busy, I’m tired, or I just want to watch TV. I was holding myself back because I had convinced myself that I had met my yes quota for the month.

In honor of Kobe, moving to a new country, and the wonderful new journey that I have said yes to, I have decide to embark on my own year of yes. Saying yes to the things that truly scare me, apart from things that would put me in harms way. Let’s see where it takes me.

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Often times we have difficulty in trying to decipher to who we are. I’ve come to the realization that you never truly come to a conclusion. We are an evolving people who are far more complex that a string of sentence that try to define us. There is the person who we want to be, the person we are afraid to admit that we currently are, and the person that we are trying to run away from being.

I fall under a lot of different categories and identify with a number of values, experiences, and opinions. On the surface, I am a black, Muslim woman. I am an American-Nigerian hijabi. A Texas Tech University Alumni, born and raised on the South side of Houston who secretly loves sweet tea, chopped and screwed, slabs and swanging, grills(gold ones with lots of diamonds), and dreads. I also have a slight obsession with bow ties, glorious beards, men in suits, people who speak proper English, and higher education.

I love turbans on hijabis, I think my collar bone is the most beautiful thing on my body and sometimes I want to share it with the world, I love skinny jeans but don’t own a single pair, and would rock a crop top every single day if I could (I’m working on the abs). I love being “woke” and staying aware of what is going on in the world, but I hate watching the news. I enjoy trap music but I cannot stand the ignorance that it spews(it’s a constant struggle with the inner hood rat inside of me).

I want to give Dawah about Islam but I don’t like discussing religion because it can become heated and turn into something so much worse, but I want to share the beautiful religion that Islam is. I believe that Arabic is the most beautiful language on the face if the earth, but I’m so lazy when it comes to learning it and memorizing the Quran. My husband says I make up a bunch of different excuses, but I know it’s because I would feel obligated to give up music. The more woke and religious I become, the more my inner hood rat dies.

I am lazy with learning Arabic because I feel guilty that I am not learning Yoruba, my father and husbands native tongue. I feel guilty picking up the Quran because I’m not picking up my text book to finish this graduate course that I have an incomplete in.

I guess the question is, how do you know which aspect to influence you in each moment? How do you know which part to give up and which part to give in to?

These are my inner struggles. I want to be religious and woke. But there are many moral conversations to be had with yourself in making this decision.

Can I be a hijabi that walks around with an ankara turban on her head, nose pierced, a grill on her lower teeth, in a black and white striped suit, with dhikr beads around her neck, a prayer rug under her arm, a baby on her hip with his afro blowing in the wind, jays on her feet, an Infinity FX 35 in the driveway and a candy apple green slab with spinners next to it for the weekends, sipping on an Arnold Palmer, with multiple degrees, red lips with a tint of poetry, smelling of incense and Chanel, fluent in Arabic and Chinese, changing the world, crushing one stereotype at a time?

If I could be who I wanted to be, I think that is who I would be. Or closest visions of myself that I would want to see today. For now, I am going to return to packing so I can make some of these things a possibility.

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Jamaica. I am moving to Jamaica. It’s hard to wrap my head around it. I’ve never been out of the United States for longer than 6 weeks. And now I have this amazing opportunity to be with my husband as we move forward in our life together, in this new country that I knew very little about prior to meet him.

As I move past my sadness of leaving my babies(students), my family, my friends, and the two cities that have been my home for many years, there is this blinding light at the end of the tunnel. And my husband is standing at the end in that light with a fruity drink and a beach towel. While I know that I will not be on the beach every single day, or every week at that, having the option is quite nice compared to Galveston water.

I am nervous. But I am happy. My birthday is around the corner, shortly after that I’ll be hoping on the plane that will take me to the next step in my journey.

I am not typically one who embarks on something new. I am anxious to see what happens next. I pray to Allah that He puts barakah in it for my family and that He guides me with every step that I take. Ameen.

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I’ve realized that new things terrify me. This is not something new that I have just stumbled upon. It is something that I discovered when I turned 20, my junior year in college when my anxiety was through the roof, I had just begun studying for the GRE, and I was overwhelmed with the decisions I had to make at the time.

The fear of the unknown. I hated it. I hated that bubbling feeling deep down in my stomach that felt like butterflies trying to force up my dinner, giving me the sweats and the chills at the same time, and that feeling when you are at the top of a rollercoaster and you have decided in that moment that you want to get off the ride. This is what fear does to me.

I graduated from Texas Tech University with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a double minor in Legal Studies and Arabic in December of 2013, a semester early. I am supposed to be half way done with my Ph. D by now. But Allah and the 10 Ph.D programs that I applied for and didn’t get into, knew better. I was not ready. I realized that a few thousand dollars later, before my first rejection letter came in, that grad school wasn’t for me. Not just yet.

So I bought a ticket to Africa, praying that it would open my eyes to what I was supposed to do next. And it worked, kinda. I recieved a job offer while I was there. So I headed back to Lubbock, TX, the only other place I have ever lived aside from the city I was born and raised. I was happy, because I was going back to a place in which I was familiar.

I tried the whole grad school thing again, soon realizing that it was still not something I was ready for. Nor something that I wanted. I did it because people said, “Get a masters degree. It’ll be partially paid for. Just do it” So I applied, 3 weeks later I was accepted. 4 months later, I quit.

I have had ups and downs, but mostly growth in my position. 2 amazing years with such amazing colleagues, students, and friends.Especially the students. I took this job because like 2 of my most favorite people Shay & Doc say, #ChangingLives. In the division that I work for, we are in the business of changing lives, not realizing that our lives are the ones that are greatly impacted by the students that we serve.

I have had my tantrum and crying fits, and I have had time to console myself (my poor husband), but after submitting my letter of resignation 4 months ago, it still was not easy. Now that my students know, have had their fights with me, cried multiple times, determined that I am not allowed to go anywhere, given me the silent treatment, helped me pack my office, and given me the permission to move forward with my life without seeing their beautiful faces everyday, I feel comfortable in sharing it with everyone else. I have passed on the knowledge that I have to those who I am now entrusting my babies.

I have less than 3 weeks left with the most incredible souls I have ever had the pleasure to know. And my heart breaks everytime one of them gives them a dirty look, or hugs me, or starts crying, or hands we an early going away present, or simply walks into the office that is no longer mines. I am moving into the unknown and that sickening feeling that I first spoke about has started to make itself comfortable in the pit of my stomach. But after 2 months of reading self help books, listening to TedX Talks, discussing the possibilities to anyone who would listen, training my replacement and leaving my babies in capable hands, I can finally say that I am ready.

I am ready to embark on this new journey. I hope that I can use this platform to take everyone with me on this new journey. I am moving. And that is okay.

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What does it mean to be human?
Sir, why so you ask me these questions
That I do not know the answer?
What does it mean to be human?
Think.
You are more than a brain and blood vessels that being oxygen to the heart.
You are more than lungs that fill with sweet air, with nostrils that filter out the tantalizing smell of hickory smoked chicken on the grill at your grandmother’s house on fourth of July.
You are more than a student in a classroom who stares at the white board, filtering out the Read More